


Thunder Rolls

by Wandering_Moose



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU oneshot, Domestic Violence, Gen, offscreen death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 12:57:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5249039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wandering_Moose/pseuds/Wandering_Moose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three thirty in the morning, not a soul in sight. The city's lookin' like a ghost town on a moonless summer night .</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thunder Rolls

 

 Orphis paced back and forth in her home, just next to her telephone. Well, it wasn't really a home yet because she hadn't quite finished working on the decoration and presentation, but it was home enough for her. A nice little house with a beautiful view of the beach, that was all she needed now. It was truly wonderful for a seadweller like her. But even a beautiful view can harbor sad secrets. Things best left to be brushed back under the rug, like all the little secrets you could find in a suburb. For her it wasn't really even a secret, but she liked to think she at least tried to keep it one.

 She paced back and forth, 4 steps forward and 5 steps back. She would stop once, lightly scratch her nose, and continue her pacing. Maybe she'd rub her left eye very gently once or twice. She had to be careful, because aggravating her black eye was painful. She would have been biting her lip in a moment of anxiety, but that would have reopened the gash on it. She only used her left hand for fiddling with parts of her face, the right hand was too bruised to do anything with.

 Deep down, she hoped that the thundering rain outside would knock out the power so she wouldn't have to wait by the phone. The sky outside was pure black with rain clouds, and every once in a while lightning would strike and thunder would sound. The rain outside was pouring down, she was certain if she set foot outside she'd be drenched in under a minute. Perhaps she'd get lucky and melt in the rain, just to escape her situation.

 He was nice. She knew it.

 He loved her. She believed it.

 He hit her. She denied it.

 She had to have done something wrong, of course. And behavior was easily correctable. If she knew precisely what she had done wrong though, that would make it a lot easier. But, she could always make an educated guess about what was wrong and try to change it. She had very clearly made him angry, it wasn't his fault she did things wrong sometimes. A lot of the time, actually. She could work hard. She could fix it.

 Thunder cracked, echoing around her home like a gunshot in an empty alley. She jumped, and flinched when she clenched her injured hand. She could even feel her splinted finger throbbing afterwards, ugh. It certainly wasn't his fault that she was hurt though, not in the least. Her finger fell down the stairs two days ago. She was being clumsy. It wasn't his fault, he loved her. Their love ran deeper than the most craggy canyon, the most cavernous crater. It was true love, and she'd be damned if she was going to believe it was anything else.

 The phone rang. Three long and very loud rings, then it stopped. Those three rings, they would have sounded quite simple to an outsider, but to Orphis they set off a deafening cacophony in her ears. The sounds themselves were almost pumping through her veins, and she hated it. Alarm bells ringing, thunder cracking, gunshots, dogs barking, police sirens blaring. The walls were closing in on her, it was almost like the walls in her own home were closing in on her to crush her tiny body in between their hard edges while all she could hear was her own heartbeat screaming out for help.

 Then the power went out.

 That didn't really help.

 Orphis was alone, in the dark, and felt like she was going to die there. She could have been found dead, her corpse curled up in a ball next to the phone. They would never know the terror of her last panic filled moments. But she couldn't die. She had a lot to do after this. She knew she could pull through, deep down.

 She took a very shaky breath, and grabbed some matches from the counter to light some lanterns for light. She held the matchbox in her right hand and attempted to strike the match with her left. Admittedly she wasn't very familiar with matches, she preferred lighters, but it was all she had at the moment. She wound up burning her fingertips on a match, but it wasn't all that bad compared to how the rest of her felt.

 Thunder would crack and lightning would strike at what seemed like every second, and the lightning would illuminate Orphis' house in a fairly eerie manner, almost like a cemetery at midnight under a full moon. Orphis leaned on a doorway just inside her living room and felt her heart grow heavy. She missed Snakemom. He hadn't let her see Snakemom in ages. It was entirely appropriate given the situation, she thought, but it was moderately mean. She loved her Snakemom. But, anything for love. And she knew it was real love.

 The thunder kept startling her. It was almost as if it was cracking just to scare her. That reminded her of someone, even though she figured he never meant what he did seriously. After all, he hit her so softly when they were alone. She felt so cripplingly alone in the dark. She could see lights burning in the very distance, they marked a little town she lived near, but she knew nobody would help her anyway. Best to keep your nose out of other peoples' business. Deep down, Orphis wished that one of them would come over and offer unconditional help, but that would never happen. Besides, they'd take him away from her. That couldn't happen, they were so happy together.

 Orphis heard a knock on her house's front wall, and she turned around to see Thurba, a burly Purpleblood with his mouth sewn shut, and the silhouette of a tall troll she didn't recognize standing on her porch. Thurba strode in, the Purpleblood came in but stopped halfway in the doorway, and the tall troll stood on the porch. She wanted to beckon the tall troll in, but she was just going to live and let live. After all, it was interfering that got her in this predicament in the first place.

 Thurba walked right up to Orphis, and lightning flashed.

 What Orphis saw, she was most definitely not expecting.

 Thurba's arms were soaked in violet blood. Her hands were stained the deepest violet, and in her right hand she held a small chunk of metal with Orphis' symbol on it. The Purpleblood behind her had his shirt soaked in violet blood, and his face paint was smudged with violet smears. She could barely make out a violet hand print covering his entire left cheek from where she was standing. She looked back at the silhouetted troll standing on her porch, and she assumed he stayed outside because there was more dripping off him than rainwater.

 Thunder cracked.

 Orphis didn't know why she had always lied to herself about it. It wasn't her fault. Not now, not ever. She didn't know what would come in the morning, but what she did know was that she could sleep soundly that night.

**Author's Note:**

> While Robolsav is an actual AU version of a character of mine, this oneshot does not take place in the Robolsav AU. It's kind of an AU of an AU. And yes, this was inspired by a Garth Brooks song. Shh.


End file.
